


Neutral Ground

by rayemars



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayemars/pseuds/rayemars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a god with a beard, the rest of Thor's body is surprisingly hairless. Not that Loki has anything to do with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neutral Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://kimmsauce.tumblr.com/post/86234460739/so-with-all-of-this-talk-about-thor-and-his-lovely) tumblr prompt:
> 
> "so with all of this talk about Thor and his lovely smooth chest, I now have the worst desire for a fic where it’s Loki who started it
> 
> Loki, who has a basin of warm water and thick foam, and an incredibly sharp curved dagger he uses just for this one task, who can barely control the tremors in his own hands as Thor lays spread out before him gloriously naked and trusting as Loki runs said dagger over his body and wipes him down, Thor trembling ever so slightly whenever Loki is near a sensitive, secret area and Loki doesn’t even feel the urge to stab him because the high he’s getting from this sort of control over Thor is better
> 
> so yeah
> 
> someone make that happen"

It started as it usually did: with an insult to Thor's pride.

Loki didn't understand why his brother still wasted time with the Greek pantheon. _He'd_ already learned all there was to glean from them and consequently moved on long ago. But Thor persisted in trying to best Hercules in feats of strength.

When he returned from his latest visit, scowling and storming and bringing a hard rain in his wake, grumbling about that arrogant, hairy oaf of a demi-god, Loki had rolled his eyes. "Yes, because there's such a contrast between the two of you."

He'd miscalculated. Thor was offended enough that Loki decided it wise to make a trip of his own, so he traveled out by the borders of Muspelheim until he'd been absent long enough that Thor forgot his displeasure and only felt the lack of his presence. Once he returned, Loki immediately noticed the change.

He needled Thor over his freshly-shaven arms until Thor at last retorted that if Loki felt _he_ could do so much better, he would enjoy seeing proof of it--which was as close as his brother came to asking for his aid these days.  
  
  
  
  
  
The first two times, he used Thor's own blade. Loki had him sit on the balcony, for the light and so the water wouldn't soak his floor. His brother didn't quite tilt his chin up for him.

"I hope you aren't intending to claim my work as worse after you put me at such a disadvantage," Loki said dryly, as he twisted down and to the side to scrape away the last bristles below Thor's jaw.

"It's no harder for you to see than it would be if I were doing it in my own mirror," Thor groused. But he lifted his chin higher.

Loki watched his brother swallow as he shaved the thin barrier of skin between his jaw and throat, and shifted on his feet as his cock twitched.  
  
  
   
  
  
The second time, Loki deliberately dulled Thor's blade beforehand and grumbled intermittently under his breath as he worked. Thor blithely ignored him; but he leaned his head back as soon as Loki scraped the blade down from his cheeks to his jaw.

"This would be easier on my back if you'd lie down," Loki commented casually as he started on Thor's armpit. He pushed the arm up higher to drive home his point. 

Thor snorted. "You're not that frail, Brother."

 _Do you think I **am** some, then?_ Loki thought bitterly. He shook his head as he kept working. "It would also leave less water soaking your pants. And _my_ chair."

Thor hummed under his breath as he looked at the bowl on the stand beside them. "...I suppose."

"The floor **is** hard," Loki agreed. "I can understand not wanting to bear it."

Thor gave him a slow, deliberating look that Loki didn't acknowledge. He let Thor's arm drop and moved on to the other.

"Will it help you?" Thor finally asked, when Loki had finished his other armpit and was about to start on his chest.

"I can't see how it would harm," he replied.

"Very well," Thor agreed, before pushing out of the chair.

He settled on his back on the flagstones while Loki rinsed off the blade and whisked up more lather. If he took more time shaving his torso than previously, it wasn't enough that Thor chose to comment.  
  
  
  
  
  
The third time, Loki ignored the shaving knife Thor brought with him and laid out a new one of his own: a sharp, sharp blade, curved more than it needed to be for the task.

He'd had it forged as soon as he learned Thor was willing to let him do this more than once. He now owed the dwarf who'd made it a few promises that might prove difficult to keep--but really, it was _his_ fault for thinking Loki trustworthy in the first place. Even if he were forced to repay the debt, it would still be worth it.

After he set the knife beside the water bowl and began to work up the lather, Thor stared at it for a long time and then looked at him for an even longer one, with an expression as though he knew exactly what Loki was doing.

But when Loki lifted an eyebrow and told him to lie down so he could start--he _did_ have other things to do with his day, surprising as that might be to Thor--his brother lay back on the stone without objection.

The third time was not his best work. Before Loki was midway through, his cock ached so badly that his hands shook.  
  
  
  
  
  
Because of it, Thor had to return sooner than usual the fourth time. He tapped the knife's handle as he stretched out beside Loki and commented, "Seems your blade didn't work any better than mine." Thor grinned at him. "A poor craftsman blames his tools."

"An ungrateful one considers going elsewhere," Loki replied dryly. 

He regretted giving Thor the opening immediately. But his brother only snickered and folded his arms beneath his head, settling more comfortably on the flagstones.  
  
  
  
  
  
The fifth time, Loki tugged Thor's wrists above his head without comment until his arms were stretched tight and then began to shave his armpits.

Thor watched him intently again for a long time afterward; but he didn't draw them back down. Even when Loki finished and moved on to his chest, Thor kept them there, folded more slackly for comfort's sake.  
  
  
  
  
  
Loki did it again the sixth and seventh time. Thor let him.  
  
  
  
  
  
By the eighth time, Asgard was entering summer. A warm breeze drifted in from the balcony as Thor laid his armor and tunic on the chair as usual; when he was done, he hesitated, one hand on the waistline of his breeches.

"You aren't expecting any visitors that would obligate modesty from me, are you?" he asked with a half-smile.

"My quarters are already practically an outpost of the baths with all the water you slop on my floors," Loki replied. "You might as well make it official."

His brother chuckled and unfastened his breeches. Loki concentrated on working up the lather.

He focused on Thor's upper body as he shaved, and didn't allow himself to look downward at the soft, thick cock resting between Thor's thighs. He didn't allow himself to notice that it was plumper by the end, after Loki lingered longer than usual on those places that always made Thor shiver faintly as he touched them.  
  
  
  
  
  
The ninth time he paced the room and finally removed his armor just before Thor arrived. He was still arranging it on the stand when his brother entered without bothering to knock or announce himself--after all, if he was to be king one day, the entire realm would be his. Loki's quarters were no exception.

Loki scowled and nearly considered pretending that he was putting his armor **on**. But then Thor laughed as he begun unlacing his own.

"I know the season's warm when even _you_ begin to shed layers," he smiled, resting his breastplate on the chair.

Loki shrugged a shoulder and went to retrieve the knife, and the other items he needed. "I'm tired of having to dry it off afterward."

He almost asked that time, as Thor lay stretched out beside him in the afternoon sunlight, his arms stretched upward the way Loki had put them--because even though Thor had begun folding them above his head of his own volition, he didn't object if Loki pushed them higher to lay him out more.

He almost asked; but he shied away at the last moment.  
  
  
  
  
  
The tenth time, he did ask.

He'd just finished shaving the stretch of skin below Thor's navel. It was the place Loki always left for last, since there was little justification in attending to it: he never dipped low enough to shave more than the tip of the curls that trailed down to Thor's cock.

But a tremor always ran through his brother when the blade grazed against his left hipbone, and once Loki discovered that he saw no cause to deny it to himself.

Instead of reaching for the warm water, he rested a hand on the rim of the bowl of lather. "Since I'm here anyway," Loki said with a small smile. He tapped the flat of the blade against the curls near the base of Thor's cock. "Shall I? How low does your vanity run, Brother?"

Thor drew in a deep breath, and Loki watched the flex of his throat as he swallowed. He kept the blade resting lightly against Thor's skin.

"Hearing you call me vain offends somehow," Thor muttered.

Loki grinned wider. "The vain know their own," he replied, and Thor chuckled.

"Hrm," he said agreeably. "...If you don't mind."

Loki's throat was too dry to speak at first, so he made a long and exaggerated sigh to conceal his delayed answer. "I suppose I can sacrifice a little more of my day."

He managed to shave Thor's underbelly reasonably well enough, but as he began to lather his sac it grew impossible to ignore the fact that Thor's cock was hardening.

"You must play interesting bed-games," Loki remarked, lifting Thor's cock to set it along his thigh.

Thor scowled, but Loki could see the muscles jump in his thighs as he fought the urge to press into his hands while Loki worked the lather around his balls. "It's not an unreasonable reaction," he mumbled.

"Yes, yes, 'fertility god,'" Loki replied drolly.

He finished with the lather and shifted Thor's cock further aside for no reason other than to feel it against his palm again. "Still," Loki pointed out as he reached for the blade. "There _is_ the small fact that it's happening while there's a knife to your manhood."

"Aye," Thor said quietly.

Loki's fingers tightened around the hilt as a tremor ran through him.

He set the knife aside and told Thor he was leaving for a moment to relieve himself.

Once Loki shut the door to his bedroom between them, he had a hand down his breeches before he was even done wrenching the laces loose. He gripped the bedpost and bit his lip as he pulled his cock free.

He came with an alacrity that would have been humiliating if he hadn't been hard since Thor laid himself down before him, naked and trusting and so very vulnerable to the knife in Loki's hands and the magic on his tongue. He always was hard from that point onward while they did this.

Loki reflected that the new expanse of himself that Thor had granted him was, unfortunately, going to prolong his enduring it until his brother eventually left his quarters. He couldn't _always_ claim a need to piss.

Loki rinsed himself off swiftly and then returned, rolling the sleeves of his tunic up to hide the excessive water stains. As he began to wipe more lather across Thor's sac to replace what had dried in his absence, he noticed Thor glancing at his forearms.  
  
  
  
  
  
The eleventh time came after a worse fight than usual between the two of them. Twice as much time had passed, and Thor had shaved himself before grudgingly admitting that Loki was more skilled at it. Loki extended a calculated reconciliation and replied that it wasn't hard to be so when he had the benefit of more practice and a better vantage point.

He left his armor off again and folded his sleeves up before Thor arrived.

Thor had groused incessantly about the itch the first day after Loki shaved his balls last time--as if Loki could have known; he'd never had cause to take a blade to more than his jaw. But when Loki questioned absently while finishing with his torso whether Thor wanted it done again, his brother simply nodded.

He spread his legs to give Loki easier access before he even asked.

As he picked up the bowl of lather, Loki made a note to begin wearing longer tunics.

When he helped Thor up off the flagstones afterward, his brother's fingers lingered against the inside of his forearm for a few moments before he let go.

Once Thor had redressed and gone, only the subconscious recognition that he might return abruptly--without knocking, always so arrogant in his intrusions--drove Loki to his bedroom before he had a hand on his cock.  
  
  
  
  
  
The twelfth time, Loki finished shaving Thor's arms and torso and sac and then flicked a finger against his thigh.

"Shall I go even lower?" he asked with a smile. "It would certainly come in handy if you ever need to retrieve Mjölnir from the giants again."

Thor glowered at him the way he always did when Loki brought that particular bit of their adolescence up. Loki leaned forward as he snickered in response, because it gave him the excuse to cup his hand against Thor's broad thigh.

"Don't use it as an opportunity to shove me in a dress again," Thor finally grumbled. "But yes. If you've the time."

"It wasn't **I** who put you in the dress," Loki pointed out, reaching for the lather. "And you insult Mother's excellent handiwork. It suited you _beautifully_."

Thor growled low in his throat. Loki sniggered again as he began to brush the lather over his leg.

When Thor at last had rinsed and dried and left him, Loki didn't even make it to the bedroom doorway before he was wrenching at the laces of his pants.

He stumbled back against the wall inside and pressed a fist to the stone as he pulled his cock free. Loki stroked it harshly, eyes closed, remembering the bunch and shift of muscles in Thor's legs beneath his palms. Beneath the blade.

With a knife at his throat or chest he could kill Thor. With one at his cock he could hurt and humiliate him. But with a blade to Thor's legs, Loki could _cripple_ him--perhaps even permanently, if he slid the right spells into the wounds before Thor made it to the healers. Thor would no longer be the strongest of the two of them, the most powerful, the most admired; he would be the lesser, dependent on Loki for whatever scraps of tolerance and honor he chose to throw his brother's way.

Thor would be dependent on Loki for the hope of reversing the harm he'd wrought. Perhaps. Someday.

It wasn't the thought of leaving Thor helpless and wretched that made Loki come so intensely his knees buckled. It wasn't even the thought of dangling that last promise over his brother's head to keep Thor enduring his callousness with intimate, impotent hatred.

It was the thought of his brother putting himself into Loki's power when he **knew** the danger of it that left him slumped and shuddering long after he'd spilled over his hand.  
  
  
  
  
  
The thirteenth time was the first one that Thor closed his eyes as Loki shaved him.

Midway through, after Thor trembled as usual when Loki let the blade graze his hipbone but still didn't open his eyes, Loki had to step away once more under the half-truth of needing to relieve himself.

Thor's cock wasn't as plump as it had been when he returned. And his brother's face was more flushed, his chest rising and falling a little swifter than before. When Loki rinsed Thor's chest again under the pretense of spotting some previously-missed lather, Thor's heartbeat wasn't yet calm: he could feel it thudding heavily below his palm.

Loki's hands trembled occasionally while he finished shaving, as he imagined his brother sucking the come from his fingers in an effort to hide how he'd jerked himself off during Loki's absence.

His cock was hard again by the time Thor left. As he retreated to his bedroom once more, Loki found himself incensed at the extremes of emotion within him: gut-twisting delight at the small surrender, and old fury stoked anew that even in _this_ , his brother overwhelmed him without trying.  
   
   
   
   
   
The fourteenth time Thor closed his eyes again as Loki shaved him--but this time he was prepared. Before his brother arrived Loki had changed with distaste into an old, loose-fitting tunic that hung nearly to mid-thigh. In case that wasn't enough, he'd bound his cock down tightly beneath his pants.

It soon ached so painfully within the confining fabric that Loki was seething at himself and Thor for it. But he didn't craft an excuse to step away and free himself.

To leave would have granted Thor solitude. And to give him **that** would allow Thor to alleviate his own growing erection.

So instead Loki stayed, and cursed silently to himself, and took his time shaving Thor in the pattern that had become familiar through repetition and yet was still so intensely new each time his brother laid on his back and allowed Loki to set a blade to his flesh.

He worked from Thor's cheeks to his jaw and throat, and then on to his armpits where he lingered at the spot that always made Thor inhale slowly. From there it was a respite as Loki applied more lather; and then he moved down Thor's chest before sliding the blade across the jut of his hipbone. He watched Thor's eyelashes flutter briefly before continuing lower.

Loki shaved his sac with a more delicate touch than usual this time, ostensibly due to the fact that Thor had grown so hard Loki could see the muscles in his thighs jump as he forced himself to hold still. Thor's fingers gripped the flagstones tight as Loki shaved it slowly, his knuckles white and his breathing strained. Loki didn't acknowledge it.

When he finally finished and let Thor's balls slip from his fingers to slap heavily against his taint, Thor hissed out a breath through his teeth. He pressed his head against the stones a moment later.

"Brother," he said hoarsely. "You wouldn't refuse relief at this point, would you?"

Loki quirked an eyebrow as he began to rinse off the blade. "I wondered when you were going to give in and ask."

The clever and back-handed quip about fertility that he'd intended to follow up with was interrupted by Thor's thick groan. And then he shoved himself up and gripped Loki's cock through his pants.

Loki's shout of disbelief strangled into a gasp as Thor worked his cock through the fabric. He brought the knife up instinctively; it was a trap, it had to be, somehow Thor had outwitted him this time--

Thor grasped his wrist and forced it to the floor, and then kissed him fiercely as he jerked open the laces of Loki's pants.

Loki could barely get enough air to breathe through the kiss, and had none at all to curse Thor as he deserved for the arrogance. But then his brother was ripping away the fabric holding down his cock and stroking him roughly with a thick, hot hand, and Loki broke away to bite down viciously on Thor's lip. It was better than letting Thor hear him moan.

It was humiliating how fast and hard he came in Thor's touch. Loki pulled his lips back in a grimace and tightened his grasp on the hilt even as aftershocks ran through him.

Thor tugged his hand away to grip it around his own cock, leaning his weight against Loki as he began to jerk himself off. He released Loki's wrist and cupped his neck instead, pulling him closer.

Loki gripped the knife even tighter as he fought to get his breath back. It would be so easy like this--it would be so incredibly _easy_....

Thor pulled him nearer and panted his name as he worked to come, his voice raw with desperate need. Loki breathed out slowly, and then dropped the knife and brought his hands up to support him instead.

Thor slumped heavily against him after he came, making Loki grunt. He braced himself to bear up the weight and remained like that, stroking his hands absentmindedly along Thor's sides, until his brother's breath begin to even out.

When Thor shifted and started to lean back, Loki set a hand to his chest and pushed him firmly toward the floor again.

"Lay down," he ordered. "I'm sure you'd rather I finish before the water turns colder."

Thor blinked and frowned faintly. He caught Loki's face in a hand and gave him a long, searching look.

Loki felt heat and ice coil low in his gut as he was forced to see the affection in his brother's gaze, misguided and foolish and unwise as always. It was never a sight he could bear for more than a few moments.

It was always an invitation to spoil it, to force Thor to see him as he **really** was and not how Thor presumed and expected him to be.

. . . But not here.

Not in these circumstances. Not when Thor made the opportunity to harm him so easy to take. The momentary vindication Loki would have on seizing it was nothing next to the pleasure of feeling Thor submit to its possibility over and over again.

Whatever his brother found in his expression, it made Thor smile softly.

And then he nodded, and lay back down before Loki, sprawling out on the flagstones now that the tension in his frame was past. A moment later, he folded his arms back high above his head.

Loki took another long breath. He cleaned the blade and whisked up more lather and finally caved and used a spell to heat the water again, until his hands felt steady once more.  
   
   
   
   
   
The fifteenth time, Thor didn't redress and leave until the next morning.


End file.
